The Custom 3-Pickup...how do they work??

greg-delta · Jul 12, 2020

I was under the impression that it had a volume for each pickup, and a master tone...

The middle position (I assume middle/bridge) is very thin and quite quiet. Is the middle position like and out of phase or some kind of thing...it's just very thin, I'm wondering if it's splitting coils or something

Surely a bridge/middle combo shouldn't be sounding half-power and thin, right? The guitar is over 30 years old, so it's possible someone wired it up as a phase switch or something

TM1 · Jul 13, 2020

Hi & Welcome! The 3-pickups are wired as follows: switch up is the neck only, switch in the middle is the bridge & middle & switch down is the bridge pickup. Two volumes and two tones. I had one for about 12 years. Now you can wire it so you have a volume for each pickup and a Master Tone,.. but there's a couple of little tricks. You have the wire the middle pickup so the input is the middle lug on the volume pot and the outside lug is the output of the pickup, that way you can blend it in & out. You can wire the switch so that it works like a normal 2-pickup guitars and the output of the middle pickup would go directly to the output jack. I have a 3-pickup Firebird and I wired it like that and it works great.
Good luck!

greg-delta · Jul 13, 2020

TM1 said:
Hi & Welcome! The 3-pickups are wired as follows: switch up is the neck only, switch in the middle is the bridge & middle & switch down is the bridge pickup. Two volumes and two tones. I had one for about 12 years. Now you can wire it so you have a volume for each pickup and a Master Tone,.. but there's a couple of little tricks. You have the wire the middle pickup so the input is the middle lug on the volume pot and the outside lug is the output of the pickup, that way you can blend it in & out. You can wire the switch so that it works like a normal 2-pickup guitars and the output of the middle pickup would go directly to the output jack. I have a 3-pickup Firebird and I wired it like that and it works great.
Good luck!

Is your middle/bridge sound really thin and underpowered?

J.D. · Jul 14, 2020

greg-delta · Jul 14, 2020

J.D. said:
Yes

Really? Why is that? Is that just unavoidable? I mean, neck and bridge sounds normal, why would bridge and middle sound bad?

Is it due to the way it’s wired?

J.D. · Jul 14, 2020

Yes. Pickups are wired in parallel IIRC.

greg-delta · Jul 14, 2020

J.D. said:
Yes. Pickups are wired in parallel IIRC.

I see! That makes sense then. So it’s possible to wire them not parallel (series I guess?) the same way you would with a neck/bridge selection?

i basically want a volume for each pickup, a master tone and the middle switch position to be middle/bridge not in parallel

is that possible?

J.D. · Jul 14, 2020

Sure there are a lot of possibilities with 3 pickups, a switch and 4 pots. The stock switch may not be correct for what you are trying to do though. Google it; I'm sure someone has already come up with this schematic.

TM1 · Jul 16, 2020

Thin and bright wasn't my experience with mine. It was more like a fat Strat in the bridge/middle position. If it's thin it might be out of phase. The OOP sound is more of a magnetic interference like a Strat than actually out of phase. I know I had a `63 Barney Kessel and the bridge pickup was actually, on purpose out of phase due to the fact that Gibson intensionally flipped the magnet on the bridge pickup.

Midnight Blues · Jul 16, 2020

greg-delta said:
I see! That makes sense then. So it’s possible to wire them not parallel (series I guess?) the same way you would with a neck/bridge selection?

i basically want a volume for each pickup, a master tone and the middle switch position to be middle/bridge not in parallel

is that possible?

Like J D typed, there are a lot of possibilities and so I would think that would be one of them?

You can try to wire it like Frampton's, where the middle pup is controlled by the lower (traditional bridge pup) controls, with the uppers controlling both the neck and bridge pups. It's activation is the middle position of the toggle switch. That was you can have the middle pup blend with either or both the neck and bridge pups, or simply just the middle pup on it's own by turning the top controls off.

mdubya · Jul 21, 2020

You can change the tone by playing with the pickup heights, too.

The Custom 3-Pickup...how do they work??

greg-delta

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TM1

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greg-delta

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greg-delta

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